From time to time, it is necessary to keep in perspective just how trivial and inconsequential our worries are in the grand scheme of things. Sometimes your whole life falls apart, your world is uprooted, and yet the world outside just continues turning as if nothing has ever happened.
This morning, I woke up to the news of Franco Columbu passing away in an accident. Franco was a strongman and bodybuilder who was the training partner and best friend of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
(Franco died from a heart attack while swimming off the coast of his home country Italy, so I guess you can say he died doing what he loves in his motherland.)
Arnold promptly made a tribute to Franco on Reddit. He shares an album of their pictures together throughout the years, along with a post recounting their friendship and memories. Both the album and the post are beautifully poignant in their own way. (you should really give it a read)
Got to admit — I almost shredded a tear going through the post. Arnold is trying his hardest to stay calm, but deep down inside I’m sure his whole world just got shattered. A piece of his soul forever lost. This particular line in his post hit me the hardest — it really shows how the role Franco played in Arnold’s life transcends everything else:
When I finally got to America, I was alone. I’d left my family, my country, my whole life behind. So when I asked Joe Weider to bring you to train with me, it was because I knew I wasn’t the same without my best friend. I could thrive without money, without my parents, but I couldn’t thrive without you.
This was huge news in the bodybuilding community; Arnold’s post becomes the highest upvoted in the /r/bodybuilding sub, and everybody was sending their condolences. And yet, when I continue browsing Reddit, it feels strangely… normal. People are sharing their pictures, commenting and joking, making casual conversations about their daily lives. It’s as if nothing has happened at all, despite the massive loss a man and an entire community have just endured.
This immediately reminds me of another comment I saw in 2017, some time after Hurricane Harvey. A Redditor says that they have had to go without electricity and running water for an entire week. The upheaval is massive: they have to sleep in shelters, have no Internet; the regular routine ceases to exists. And yet, when the poster goes on Reddit, he/she describes it as ‘strangely normal’. It’s as if the world continues to carry on like nothing has ever happened at all, even though their life has just been turned 180°.
Ultimately, I think it’s sometimes sobering to keep in perspective just how tiny our world is. Our problems, worries, our elation and happiness, our inner world, ultimately only matter to us. With or without us, life goes on, indifferent to anything that we ever experience.